Friday, December 10, 2004

Pope Praises US Bishops for Handling Scandal

Pope John Paul II met with a group of American bishops today and praised them for how they handled the sex-abuse scandal. According to Catholic World News:

The Holy Father stressed that he "shares the deep pain which you and your people have experience in these last years," and urged the American bishops "to persevere joyfully in the ministry entrusted to you."

The scandal, John Paul II said, had given the Church in America "a providential call to conversion and deeper fidelity." The crisis, he added, gave the American bishops an opportunity for "to begin the new millennium by starting afresh from Christ."